1 David Yakobson
From: Jean Reichle <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 11:50 AM
To: councilmtgitems
Cc: Stathis Kostopoulos
Subject: Euclid parking lot and EV chargers
EXTERNAL
Hello,
My name is Jean Reichle and I am a Santa Monica resident since 2001. I live in a townhome (1244 12th St ) and use the 1217 Euclid Electric Vehicle charging station frequently, since I cannot install a charger in our building. No other public charging stations are available that I can use for my car that are within walking distance; the 14th & Santa Monica Blvd Tesla charging station is not compatible with non-Tesla cars, for example. EV chargers are in high demand in our neighborhood, since most of us cannot install chargers in our condos/apartments. My family, friends, and neighbors also use these parking lots for the shops along Wilshire frequently, since street parking is rarely available.
I am very disappointed to read that the city is replacing these lots and charging stations with public housing and there is no concrete plan for public parking or charging stations. I am typically supportive of affordable housing for low income residents, but demand more information and transparency on these projects and a public vote. Parking in our neighborhood is scarce as it is!
Please contact me regarding this situation.
Thank you,
-Jean
310-592-1248
Council votes to build affordable housing on three city-owned sites https://smdp.com/2024/03/25/council-votes-to-build-affordable-housing-on-three-city-owned-sites/ --
Jean K. Reichle, DVM MS DACVR
[email protected]
Item 1
March 26, 2024
Item 1
March 26, 2024
1 David Yakobson
From: Arthur Jeon <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, March 24, 2024 11:37 PM
To: Gleam Davis; Lana Negrete; Oscar de la Torre; Christine Parra; Caroline Torosis; Jesse Zwick; Phil Brock
Cc: David White; Douglas Sloan; City of Santa Monica; Clerk Mailbox; Jeanette Gant; Micah Akerson; Erika Aklufi; Danielle Noble; Ramon Batista; [email protected]; Roberto Lucio; Thomas McLaughlin; Jose Rodriguez; Annette Farmer; Maryanne LaGuardia; Albin Gielicz; Alisha Brady; [email protected]; Arati Desai Wagabaza; Lori Brown; John Smith; John Alle; Evan Meyer; [email protected]; Luke Cain; Peter Bosen; [email protected]; Elaine Golden-Gealer; Eric Sedman; Michele Aronson; Aisling Winders; Julia Ladd; Peter TRINH; [email protected]; Anuj Gupta; [email protected]; dominic gomez; Jenna Grigsby; Attorney Mailbox; Shawn R.
Kehoe; Andrew Thomas; SMDP Editor; Susan Cline; Third District; Michele A Wittig; [email protected]; Attorney Mailbox; Joe; [email protected]; Stan Epstein; [email protected]; [email protected]; Tricia Crane; [email protected]; Turbella; Phil Brock; Lauren Howland; [email protected]; Matthew Hall; Richard Drapkin; [email protected]; Planning Commission Comments; Dawn Fairchild; [email protected]; [email protected]
Subject: One phot... Top of my street
EXTERNAL
Dear Council,
Walking last night with my wife to a spontaneous dinner at Tocaya on Wilshire, we counted 14 addicts and/or mentally ill people in the 4 blocks from 9th street to 5th street. They were trudging to our alleys and carports, or already holed up in empty storefronts, or heading to Reed Park, or hanging out in the parking lot of the 7/11, or getting ready to bed down wherever. They were high, unstable, and neither of us felt safe. Some were doing drugs, one was buying drugs. My wife again brought up wanting to live “somewhere nice,” and despite my often unrequited love of Santa Monica, I couldn’t disagree with the reality we live in. Where else in the country can you encounter 14 ill people within 4 blocks besides the worst Skid Rows of Los Angeles and San Francisco? How have we all gotten so inured to this that we’ve normalized the abnormal?
Some of the council members I’ve talked to directly are operating under a fiction that things are getting better, perhaps because our private security has been able to patrol the promenade where things are getting better (if you don’t walk the alleys and streets around it). Perhaps because they are not touring neighborhoods living with the onslaught. But my neighborhood has, depending on the day, not changed, or like last night demonstrated, gotten much worse (so bad that we don’t really walk Wilshire at dusk, last night being an anomaly).
The very reason we chose to live here was because of easy access to downtown, and the ability to travel by foot and bike, embodying the dream of the 15-minute city, which we had both gotten used to living close by. Well, that dream has turned into a dystopian nightmare. Reed continues to be a magnet of disorder, supported by a much hated needle distribution program, the 7/11 which still has drug dealing, and the liquor store on 10th and Wilshire. Small restaurants and businesses in this part of Wilshire open and almost immediately close because foot traffic has disappeared. In short, my neighborhood is a mess.
Item 1
March 26, 2024
Item 1
March 26, 2024
2 To be clear, I do not go out looking for this in some sort of misery tour, intent on only showing a skewed picture of Santa Monica. That’s too easy and doesn’t show the entirety of this city, still struggling with recovery, but showing signs of life.
It's why I don’t often include pictures, hesitating to even bother to show this because it should be obvious to anybody with eyes who isn’t willfully, in a Panglossian delusion like a few of our council members, choosing not to see it. If I really wanted to I could document a level of insanity, misery, and human need that’s on par with what I encountered in India.
My wife was freaked out enough that I didn’t take pictures of everybody we saw last night. But I did snap ONE HURRIED PICTURE at the top of our street at 9th and Wilshire (below). It’s for the city council members I talk to that don’t think it’s a big deal, or doesn’t really exist. And they are out there, believe me.
I know change takes time, and that we have billions being invested in Santa Monica (perhaps giving some in our government a false sense of progress and security), and that we have the new transport van coming online, and that we are trying to get LA County to shoulder their fair share of the 6,000 transients that flow through our city every year, and that we are trying to deal with being a terminal end point of the train. But how much time should we give a city that ignores the reality residents have to live with, which is extremely “service resistant” addicts and their heartbreaking brethren, the seriously mentally ill? How much time would you give your neighborhood if it looked like this, and that you had to be on guard every time you leave the house?
I’ve said it before, and I'll say it again, getting a handle on this issue is existential for a destination tourist town. And it’s existential for those of us bearing the brunt of it. Cleaning up just the promenade, and I’ve personally witnessed how skillfully the Legion team has dealt with the insanity, does’t work for residents who are now getting the overflow. We must do much, much better. Start by listening to residents instead of gaslighting them. Start by finding the money to bring 20 more sworn officers so our chief can get the undercover unit going to go after the dangerous and armed dealers creating so much misery here.
Start by taking a close look at the one photo I took. Ask yourself, is this is what the county and Santa Monica get by spending $27,000 per homeless person every year in LA County?!!! What a miserable failure.
Sincerely,
Arthur Jeon
MASTER SHOT: At the top of my street are 4 addicts and/or mentally ill people within a half a block. One is regularly bedding down at Dagwoods, which needs to be fenced in. He is doing drugs. The other one is talking to him loudly. The other two are just off the Schwab parking lot.
CLOSE UP: On the far left you can’t see the man crouched behind his pile of possessions, heartbreakingly topped by a pet container. On his right is another transient looking for a place to bed down.
Item 1
March 26, 2024
Item 1
March 26, 2024
3 CLOSE UP: The former SM institution, Dagwood’s, now closed, should be completely fenced, including the parking lot, because addicts are bedding down it it, and drug dealers are often hanging out there if the cops crack down on the 7/11.
The guy sitting is doing drugs. One shot, four transient addicts.
Item 1
March 26, 2024
Item 1
March 26, 2024
4 C
Item 1
March 26, 2024
Item 1
March 26, 2024
1 David Yakobson
From: Madeline Luedke <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, March 24, 2024 10:53 AM
To: councilmtgitems
Subject: Urgent Action Needed to Restore Safety in Palisades Park Categories: Orange Category
EXTERNAL
Dear Santa Monica City Council,
I am writing to express my deep concern about the recent surge of homeless encampments and disruptive behavior in Palisades Park. These issues are not only impacting the park's intended use for picnics, relaxation, and family outings, but more importantly, they are threatening the safety of residents, children, pets, and the majority of the population who use the park peacefully.
The presence of encampments creates an unsanitary environment and can attract negative activity.
Today, for instance, I witnessed a disturbing incident where a man yelled threats “I will blow your face off” at passersby, causing a family with young children to feel unsafe. Another man, degraded my wife about her breasts. And a third man, we saw inject what I assume to be drugs into his arm intravenously. All three instances occurred within one morning walk along the bluffs. This is unacceptable.
Our focus on the safety of vulnerable populations should not come at the expense of the safety of the majority.
While I understand the complexities of homelessness, the current situation in Palisades Park requires immediate action.
Here are some suggestions:
Review and potentially reinstate programs or resources that were seemingly more effective a year ago in managing the situation in Palisades Park. Explore alternative housing solutions, potentially temporary housing with support services in less populated areas, especially for those with severe mental health needs.Research suggests permanent housing isn't always the best answer in these cases. Investigate the feasibility of volunteer programs to support these temporary housing locations.
Palisades Park is a vital community space, and its current state is unsustainable. We need a comprehensive and compassionate approach that addresses homelessness, even a bandaid in the interim, while ensuring the safety and well-being of all residents and visitors.
Thank you for your time and attention to this urgent matter.
Item 1
March 26, 2024
Item 1
March 26, 2024
2 Sincerely,
Madeline Luedke
Santa Monica resident since 2014
Item 1
March 26, 2024
Item 1
March 26, 2024
3 David Yakobson
From: Ann Hoover <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, March 22, 2024 10:35 AM
To: Phil Brock; Christine Parra; Oscar de la Torre; Lana Negrete; Gleam Davis; Caroline Torosis; Jesse Zwick; councilmtgitems
Cc: David White; Susan Cline; Douglas Sloan; Susan Cola; Ramon Batista; Heather Averick; Erika Aklufi; Jenny Rogers; Steven Johnson
Subject: Follow-up to March 19, 2024 Council Meeting - Item 16.J. - Needle and Naloxone Distribution
Categories: Orange Category
EXTERNAL
Dear Mayor Brock & Esteemed Councilmembers -
This data won't come as a surprise to at least some of you but:
Annual U.S. Health Care spending to purchase naloxone is estimated by the NIH to be as high as $1.4 BILLION to $4 BILLION. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37614062/ Who makes naloxone? Emergent Biosolutions.
What is Emergent Biosolutions market capitalization? $129,500,000.
Follow the money, deconstruct the rhetoric. "Harm reduction" is big business. We live in Orwellian times, where "harm reduction" is how we describe the provision of expensive needles and antidote drugs to further enable drug use, the possibility of overdose, death and/or suicide.
N.B. Some health care practitioners are beginning to believe, based on experience, that the availability of naloxone may actually increase risky behavior, although good luck finding a study yet to examine that. Again, follow the money.
I thank and applaud the 4 City Councilmembers who are pushing to take needle distribution out of our parks and I applaud their common sense, reasonable suggestions for how to continue "harm reduction" in appropriate venues so as to safeguard our larger populace and return our parks to the public.
I reprimand and disapprove of the 3 Councilmembers who choose to privilege and elevate the behavior of a handful of addicts over the rights of thousands of Santa Monicans to clean, safe, needle-free parks and public spaces.
Item 1
March 26, 2024
Item 1
March 26, 2024
4 Santa Monicans pay every year for our parks and public spaces with our taxes, all while watching a higher and higher portion of our City budget every year go to dealing with the vagrants, the mentally ill, and the drug addicts who pour into Santa Monica because we are a sanctuary city for people with problems. Yet the thanks to our community for that generous welcome is dirty, unsafe and unusable parks and public spaces.
I further reprimand and disapprove of the 3 Councilmembers who privilege the addicts who have rendered Reed Park, Tongva and other parks and public spaces more or less unusable by our children and our senior citizens, to mention only a few of our local and/or vulnerable and sensitive populations deserving of clean, safe, needle-free parks and public spaces.
And if none of our local service providers want or are suitable to host this needle distribution, I support what I believe was either Councilmember Parra's or Councilmember Negrete's suggestion to take the addicts in vans to the concrete space in front of City Hall, put up some shade structures for them, and let them lounge about and smoke and toke and shoot up and LA County can direct the Venice Family Clinic to come and do the "harm reduction" there.
Sincerely,
Ann Bowman
Resident, 28 years
A little more on Emergent Biosolutions:
How one company profited while delaying Narcan’s drugstore debut To help
protect your
privacy,
Micro so ft
Office
prevented
auto matic
download of
this picture
from the
Internet.
How one company profited while delaying
Narcan’s drugstore debut
Access to Narcan, a lifesaving drug that reverses overdoses, has been limited by Emergent BioSolutions’ hunt for...
"Robert Califf, head of the Food and Drug Administration, blamed Narcan’s overthe-counter delay on Emergent’s pursuit of profits. 'I think the problem is that the financial model doesn’t appear to be working for the company, so they’re not motivated to do it,' Califf said at a 2022 conference. 'We can’t order companies to go Item 1
March 26, 2024
Item 1
March 26, 2024
5 over-the-counter.' Emergent’s reluctance ended in late 2022 after a competitor prepared its own bid for over-the-counter approval of naloxone....." Item 1
March 26, 2024
Item 1
March 26, 2024